Monthly Archives: April 2017

In response to my puzzlement about a piece of rigging on the USS Constellation we encountered while on vacation, a reader writes:

Check out Baggywrinkle – just an idea about your ‘shaggy ropes.’

And, indeed, that must be it. Wikipedia:

Baggywrinkle is a soft covering for cables (or any other obstructions) to reduce sailchafe. There are many points in the rig of a large sailing ship where the sails come into contact with the standing rigging; unprotected sails would soon develop holes at the points of contact. Baggywrinkle provides a softer wearing surface for the sail.

The lower specimen appears to be an exact match to what we saw. Thanks!

A friend points me at this article in Quartz on the scholarly work of Professor Carlo M. Cipolla of University of California, Berkeley in 1976 on stupid people. He identifies 5 laws of human stupidity, and #3 sparked a thought (no, not that thought):

Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

Cipolla called this one the Golden Law of stupidity. A stupid person, according to the economist, is one who causes problems for others without any clear benefit to himself.

The uncle unable to stop himself from posting fake news articles to Facebook? Stupid. The customer service representative who keeps you on the phone for an hour, hangs up on you twice, and somehow still manages to screw up your account? Stupid. …

However, consistent stupidity is the only consistent thing about the stupid. This is what makes stupid people so dangerous. Cipolla explains:

Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behavior. An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit’s actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality. The bandit wants a plus on his account. Since he is not intelligent enough to devise ways of obtaining the plus as well as providing you with a plus, he will produce his plus by causing a minus to appear on your account. All this is bad, but it is rational and if you are rational you can predict it. You can foresee a bandit’s actions, his nasty maneuvres and ugly aspirations and often can build up your defenses.

With a stupid person all this is absolutely impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy.

So … I can’t help but wonder how Law 1 (“Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation“) can possibly hold, right? After all, the life span of a stupid person should be substantially shorter than that of the average competent person.

But we all know of really stupid people. No, I’m not talking about Trump voters, although no doubt a few of them, according to to Cipolla’s First Law, are just out and out stupid. But we all know folks who consistently make bad decisions. The kids playing Nerf Wars while driving and ending up dead, for example. So how do they survive?

Why, we’ve all enabled it, haven’t we? Remember the Zero-risk society? It all seemed like such a great idea – minimize risk at all times, put the responsibility on the manufacturers for the safe use of their products, keep workplaces exceedingly safe. I suppose it’s a side-effect of the idea that all life is sacred. Well, all human life, anyways. And dog life.

Don’t forget Cat life. Yeah, that’s a dirty look.

So through the indiscriminate valuation of human life, we end up with stupid people persisting far longer in the population – and annoying the rest of us – than they might otherwise do. That suggests the obvious solution:

Stop the absurd driving of risk to zero.

Maybe offer high school classes in not being stupid, but leave it at that. Someone wants to run their radio in the bathtub, hey, great. Just make sure your Last Will and Testament is filled out. Maybe hospitals shouldn’t be required to treat idiots who accidentally shoot themselves.

Policy changes of this order may drive mortuary business to new highs, momentarily, but it’ll certainly result in a reduction of stress for the rest of us.

But then we’d have to stop being so stupid.

It’s a conundrum, isn’t it?

See also: “The Marching Morons,” by C. M. Kornbluth.

Achieving the dream leaves we slightly whacked.

Get Out (2017) is a movie of the moment: it plays with today’s psychosocial currents of American society to create moments of tensions, revelation, and stress-relieving humor.  From a poke at the vagaries of smartphone technology to the continuing racial tensions bedeviling the shared American mind, the film slowly reveals a plot worthy of the Stepford Wives.

Chris is a young black man in love with Rose, a young, flighty white woman, and it’s time for the Meet the Parents moment, featuring her parents, Missy, a psychologist, and Dean, a neurosurgeon, as well as her obnoxious and usually drunken brother, Jeremy. The jabs are friendly and light, although sometimes they seem slightly … off.

During the night, Chris goes out for a smoke and encounters Missy on his way back in.  They talk, then Chris wakes from a nightmare of falling through a chair and away from reality. It’s jarring, disturbing and unnatural.

The next day, a mob of family friends shows up, friendly and happy – until the oddball comments start. Not offensive, but not what’s expected. They all play their parts, one might say, right to the hilt.

And then it gets weird, starting with a silent auction. There’s one thing being auctioned:  A large photograph of Chris. But why is it fetching such a high price? It isn’t clear.

Placed in the horror genre, the film does not indulge in the many trappings of today’s horror movie; it’s more like the better Hitchcock films – Film Noir for the modern day. There is violence, but the gore is implied. There might be horror in the background, but Chris is no helpless victim. He’s clever and decisive. And just when all the bets appear lost, a guardian angel appears to take the breath of the audience away.

Like most horror films, if you think too hard about it, the plot holes become apparent. That’s rather the essence of horror films, isn’t it? But this is definitely a better one, eschewing shock value and messy, empty showmanship. Rather, it explores the psychological and social aspects of a desire to live, which is common to us all.

This film is really a lesson in what happens when stunning science meets amorality, taken to its illogical extreme.

Recommended, if you like horror or Hitchcock.

NewScientist (15 April 2017) notes the Nicaragua canal appears to be a go, despite ecological concerns:

Map: Fresh Fruit Portal

It will carve a 273-kilometre channel through the small Central American country to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean – even though the Panama Canal, 1000 kilometres to the south, already does the job, and received a massive upgrade less than a year ago.

Why the duplication? Proponents of the canal say it will ease congestion that the upgrade can’t address, and create new economic opportunities for Nicaragua. By shortening journeys, it could even help stem the rise in the shipping industry’s share of global carbon emissions, which could reach 17 per cent by mid-century. …

Unsurprisingly protests ensued, delaying construction. The project has enraged Nicaraguan ecologists. Its most outspoken critic is Jorge Huete-Perez at the University of Central America in Managua, a former president of the country’s Academy of Sciences. Huete-Perez told New Scientist the canal would cut through biosphere reserves and destroy 4000 square kilometres of rainforests and wetlands. He also warned it would decimate coastal coral, mangroves and beaches where sea turtles lay their eggs – as well as inundating the villages of several indigenous forest tribes. “The canal project represents the worst nightmare for Nicaraguan conservationists,” he says.

Fears are perhaps greatest for Lake Nicaragua. Spanning almost half the width of the country, it is the nation’s chief source of fresh water. More than 100 kilometres of it lies on the canal’s route, requiring a trench three times the lake’s existing depth to be built. That will “irreversibly alter the aquatic environment of Nicaragua,” says Axel Meyer of the University of Konstanz in Germany.

But while it’s a fascinating project, I must admit this part of the report really grabbed my attention:

There may be one last, slim hope for opponents of the canals: an altogether different way for ships to get between oceans. Engineers in South Korea say it might be easier, and more environmentally friendly, to span the relatively flat Kra isthmus with a railway sturdy enough to carry ships weighing up to 100,000 tonnes (not much smaller than the Panama Canal now takes). The Korea Railroad Research Institute, which has pioneered the idea of these so-called “dry canals”, suggested earlier last year that it could be built for a quarter of the cost of the Thai canal. A similar project has been proposed in Honduras, just north of Nicaragua.

Dry canals bring fascinating visuals to mind, although it appears no one has put evocative pictures online. Hofstra University reports they’re a hot topic these day in Central America, with 7 either proposed or actual operational dry canals, although from the description most of them are not on the scale of the proposed Nicaragua dry canal – they mention road connections and the like. Putting an entire ship on a railroad car – of magnificent proportion – just boggles the mind a bit. But how to power the passage – a railway engine seems both inadequate and inglorious. I envision two trackways with suitable separation, capstans of marvelous size, and some manner to connect the powerplants of the ships themselves to the ropes using the capstans, and then each ship might be able to power the others passage.

No doubt some killjoy will point out a flaw in my scheme.

Epigraph:

Epigraph may refer to:

• An inscription, as studied in the archeological sub-discipline of epigraphy
• Epigraph (literature), a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component
• Epigraph (mathematics), the set of points lying on or above its graph

[Wikipedia]

I realized the other day that I really had little idea what epigraph might mean, and it turns out it’s a three banger.

In the previous post I noted the possible candidacy of Tommy Tuberville, former football coach of Auburn, for the governorship of Alabama. This appears to have come to a halt, as AL.com reports, despite his overwhelming confidence:

“I think I could make a difference if I do decide to run (for governor of Alabama) because it is all about sales, organization and leadership,” Tuberville said in February. “Some people say you haven’t been in politics. I’ve been in a big part of it. This whole country is politics now.”

Which strikes me as a little naive. If the political scene is so bad, why does his experience with it make him a good candidate? Nor does he really say the right things, such as having studied government at a respected institute. And while I don’t make that a necessity, I worry about candidates and winners who can’t see beyond the frontier of their own experience of the world. As noted throughout this blog, using techniques from other sectors is not a guarantee of success in a sector foreign to the techniques original context. That’s a simple, commonsense observation which seems to escape most advocates of moving free enterprise into other sectors.

And which sector, by the way, would a football coach be considered a part of?

Rudiger Frank analyzes the latest Parliamentary Session in North Korea for 38 North. His conclusion?

Despite harsher-than-usual Chinese implementation of economic sanctions, a political crisis in South Korea and growing military pressure from the Trump administration in Washington, the 2017 session of the North Korean parliament showed no sign of urgency. The event followed more or less the same routine as in previous years.

In terms of economic policy, we note a strong focus on energy production and the consumers, and no acknowledgement of any consequences of the Chinese ban on the import of North Korean coal. The remarks on food production imply that starchy staple food is not a problem anymore and that the focus is now on improving the diet of the population by producing more fat and protein.

A separate report on the implementation of 12-year compulsory education shows the great attention paid by the North Korean leadership on the young generation. An extra year of schooling and a reformed education system are aimed at improving the ability of graduates to be able to cope with the high-tech plans of the government, but also to strengthen the grip of the state propaganda on the minds of North Korean youth.

I see educating the next generation as a calculated risk. Better education requires improved analytical skills – and those skills can easily be applied to the current governmental system and expose inefficiencies and irrationalisms (such as having a despot in charge). But those same skills are necessary to improve all facets of the economy – and if they continue to make progress, well, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. There’s nothing like success to blunt criticism and support the current system.

And the calm suggests that the governmental doesn’t really expect to self-immolate in a war with the United States any time soon  It’s probable they’ve analyzed Trump and figure him for the paper tiger he has so far proven to be; the missile launches are the usual testing you’d expect from a development program.

NewScientist (15 April 2017) notes a new scam showing up on, of all things, Google Maps:

LOCAL businesses on Google Maps aren’t always as local as they seem. Tens of thousands of bogus listings are added to the maps every month, directing browsing traffic towards fraudulent schemes, finds a team of researchers at Google and the University of San Diego, California.

As an example, a fraudster might list a locksmith at a location on Google Maps. When a potential customer calls the phone number listed, they are put through to a call centre that hires unaccredited contractors to do jobs. Often the customer ends up being coerced into paying more than the quoted price.

To analyse the scope of this abuse, the team looked at over 100,000 listings that were identified as fake between June 2014 and September 2015. The fraudulent listings most often belonged to services like locksmiths, plumbers and electricians.

Overall, less than one per cent of Google Maps listings were fraudulent, but pockets of fake listings emerged. In West Harrison, New York, for example, more than 80 per cent of locksmiths listed were scams.

Seems like every opportunity to enhance life comes with its own set of lampreys, doesn’t it?

serpentinite:

Serpentinite is a rock composed of one or more serpentine group minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth’s mantle. The mineral alteration is particularly important at the sea floor at tectonic plate boundaries. [Wikipedia]

Noticed in “Life could exist up to 10 kilometres beneath the sea floor,” Chelsea Whyte, NewScientist (15 April 2017):

The heat and stress causes some of the material on the subducting plate to become a buoyant mineral called serpentinite that rises and erupts out of mud volcanoes.

Examining the serpentinite in their samples, the team found chemicals usually produced by life, including amino acids and hydrocarbons.

We returned from a vacation trip to Baltimore last Tuesday, which started on Friday, for purposes of fencing & general relaxation.

Yeah, sure.

About the fencing, it was absurdly expensive, as much of my equipment proved defective.  The fencing itself proved disappointingly unproductive as well.  About this, no more need be said.

And the driving was dominated by aggressive nutters.

Our first full day in Baltimore was marked by fencing in the morning, and then dinner with local friends. They then took us, along with their wonderful Welsh friend, out to a concert of three pieces, put on by The Columbia Orchestra. First, I’ll note, I know little about music.  The first two pieces,  Sarasate‘s Zigeunerweisen and Shostakovich‘s Cello Concerto No. 1, 4th movement, were delightful, each featuring solos by local students who had won young musician grants offered by the orchestra. During the Sarasate piece, which featured a 12 year old violinist, my Arts Editor whispered in my ear, “He’s amazing! And what were YOU doing in 7th grade?”

Grumble. I don’t remember.

And then came the centerpiece:  the short opera Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartok. Oh, my.

Ohmyohmyohmyohmyohmy.

While I think we liked the representation of the seven locked doors in his castle, I had to wonder if the seven large screens interfered with the orchestra’s acoustics. As it was, perhaps 30% of the time the singers were inaudible, or at best unintelligible, as they could not compete with the orchestra. The piece itself was dark and moodily jarring, written in an octonal scale, and relying on jangling discords for much of its drama.  Given my lack of knowledge of music, and my respect for Mull’s dictum^[1], I shan’t comment further except to say that all of us seemed exhausted at the end of the performance.

The next day we visited the USS Constellation, as it’s docked in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. A sloop-of-war, we were surprised at its apparent roominess, although I suspect most of its fittings were removed for a renovation in progress. I didn’t take any long distance shots, so these two will have to fulfill that obligation:

I like the second slightly better. Here were have a picture of one of its masts:

And here’s a detail of one of those block and tackles from the previous picture:

Not as clear as I might like, but we were in a hurry. Note the submarine in the background, which I regret to say we did not have time to visit, nor the lighthouse ship, also anchored nearby. As I enjoy unusual perspectives, here’s a shot from the dock, looking up.

This shot caught a mystery for me: why shaggy ropes?

There was a lack of visually interesting perspectives inside the Constellation, but I took a couple, first of the Captain’s cabin, if I recall properly:

And here we have a pile of rope, near the ship’s bow, second deck.

From the Constellation we moved on to another – futile – fencing event, and thence dinner and bed. The next morning we lit out for Charlottesville, VA, the home of Jefferson’s Monticello. Inside pics were not allowed, and it was raining steadily during our entire visit, curtailing visits to the flower beds or any structures other than the main structure. But we thoroughly enjoyed our visit (my second, my Arts Editor’s first), and the docent was caught rather flat-footed, as management had changed much of the artwork out just the day before. Here’s my lone pic from that visit:

I fear I failed to capture the mistiness of the scene, sadly. It was far more enchanting than this paltry attempt.

From there, it was to dinner (Cafe 88 was the iconic hole in the wall, What! This is good! place), to bed, up at 3:15 AM to catch the early (and only) flight to Dulles Airport, and from there – home.

And now a disinclination to blog. Spring is almost here.

¹Martin Mull, who, according to Quote Investigator, once said or wrote,

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Over the last few years we’ve visited Byblos in Burnsville, MN maybe a dozen times – and never been disappointed. Featuring Lebanese food, we find their food to be boldly spiced and tasty, and we especially like their treatments of meats as well as their garlic sauce, which appears to simply be well mashed garlic with a little salt.

And I don’t think my wife will be kissing me tonight.

If you’re in Burnsville, MN, looking for food, you could do a lot worse.

Byblos, 14637 County Rd 11, Burnsville , MN 55337

NewScientist (15 April 2017) reports the Trump Administration is looking at Yucca Mountain for burying nuclear waste – and that the Department of Energy is developing a Plan B:

So the Department of Energy is working on an alternative. It plans to bury the spent fuel in hundreds of narrow shafts drilled 5 kilometres down into solid granite across the US. The technique has yet to be tested, but the idea is that the waste would melt surrounding rock and then slowly solidify into a granite “coffin”.

The first test drilling site is set to be announced next month.

I wonder how “full’ each shaft will be filled with nuclear waste – and what happens if someone finds a use for nuclear waste?

A random thought that came up while watching You Can’t Take It With You (1938): Trying to imagine the role of Grandpa Vanderhof, played by Lionel Barrymore in the movie, instead being played by … Tom Cruise.

I’ll just leave you with that thought.

Continuing this thread, I see that not every North Carolina GOP member is involved in dishonorable tactics. Consider this report, from The News & Observer, concerning the abrupt resignation of GOP member Judge Doug McCullough:

The Republican legislators leading an effort to reduce the size of the state Court of Appeals as three Republican judges near mandatory retirement age hit an unexpected obstacle on Monday.

Judge Doug McCullough, a Republican on the appellate bench who was expected to retire from the bench at the end of May, decided to retire early and give Gov. Roy Cooper the power to appoint his replacement. …

“I did not want my legacy to be the elimination of a seat and the impairment of a court that I have served on,” McCullough said Monday morning after the announcement. …

McCullough, while stressing that he was honored to serve on the bench, recalled a time when Gov. Jim Martin, a Republican, was in the executive office and the Democrats at the helm of the General Assembly “did not interfere with his power to make appointments to the judiciary.”

Kudos to Judge McCullough for circumventing the leadership of his own party in order to preserve the integrity of the North Carolina judiciary. His mature conduct may lead to his ejection from the party, but then one wonders if there’s really that many members with which he wishes to have an association.

In a fairly dense article, Young-Keun Chang, professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Korea Aerospace University, discusses recent missile developments by North Korea on 38 North. His conclusion is stark, however:

Ultimately, the transition from liquid to solid propellant missiles will bring about a fundamental paradigm shift in North Korean missile systems (Figure 8). A road-mobile ICBM, tentatively named the Pukguksong-3, employing solid propellant rocket motors could easily achieve the range performance required to hit the US mainland in the future, making it a serious potential threat to the United States.

It would be interesting to know if American experts agree with this assessment. If so, then this may be the paramount challenge facing President Trump and his successors. If there are aliens watching, they must be vastly amused at the thought of two cartoon characters in control of such destructive capabilities, trying to stare each other down.

xylograph:

Kunyu wanguo quantu, or Map of the Ten Thousand Countries of the Earth, is the oldest surviving Chinese map to show the Americas. It is a xylograph (wood block print) on six scrolls of fine native paper, each scroll measuring approximately 1820 x 3650 mm (each panel is approximately 2 feet by 5.75 feet). The carving of the wood blocks was done by Zhang Wentao. [University of Minnesota / James Ford Bell Library]

A panoply of nuts.

The award-winning You Can’t Take It With You (1938) is the classic cautionary tale, told through contrast. J. P. Kirby is an industrialist intent on sewing up the biggest takeover of his career, but in order to do so he must obtain control of the house owned by Grandpa Vanderhof, a man who dropped out of the business world 35 years ago to pursue stamp collecting, harmonica playing, and raising his slapdash, happy-go-lucky family. As Kirby is operating through an agent, neither is aware that Vanderhof’s beautiful daughter, Alice, is working for Kirby’s dashing son, Tony, and by the time the movie opens, they are testing the waters of love.

Eventually, marriage plans are made and it’s time to play Meet the Parents, but Tony, disturbed by his own family’s social pretensions, brings them to Alice’s house a day earlier than planned in order to ensure each gets to meet the other side as they really are. This goes poorly, and the arrival of the police with accusations of fomenting a revolution (which are conveniently forgotten), exacerbated by an accidental fireworks release, lands the entire mob, already upset and tousled, in jail, awaiting the pleasure of the night court.

Here the contrast is deepest, as Kirby’s support system at the immediate trial is his corporate lawyers, while Vanderhof, without lawyers, confesses to the firework mishap and is fined – a fine immediately paid by all this neighbors, who have been the recipient of much help over the years and arrived for the trial in support.

The disappearance of Alice, distraught over the debacle and her failed courtship, and wishing to avoid Tony, places pressure on the Vanderhofs, who support each other, and when word comes of her presence across town, Vanderhof decides it’s time to sell out and move across town to give his daughter more support. The word from Vanderhof to the agent trying to buy the property triggers Kirby’s business deal, and within days eviction notices are delivered to people in the neighborhood. In the board room, Kirby’s partners begin the war on the corporation to be taken over. But when the day arrives, Kirby is stricken with a family defection – Tony, his son, who he was going to make President of the new conglomerate, announces his decision to resign from the company and seek a new life elsewhere. His reasons? They mirror Vanderhof’s – a desire for happiness, rather than success.

And then, rather much like Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol, the owner of the firm taken over by Kirby’s, now forced out and broke, appears at Kirby’s office. Does he plead for mercy? No. Instead, he delivers a warning that this mode of business never delivers happiness, he has learned to his regret, and leaves. As Kirby considers his advice, his secretary interrupts and says the man has died in the washroom.

Kirby, bereft of son and doubtful of his only passion in life, appears at Vanderhof’s, who is busy moving out, and begs for advice. A gentle smile and a harmonica are all that is offered, and that is enough.

This is a movie that dances the delicate line between drama and fluffy farce, and the former wins when the thematic material is reinforced through the warning and death of the rival business owner, as well as the jail scene. This, in concert with the behavior of his son, brings into focus the continual problem of making business your entire life. The constant virtual warfare of the predatory business world and its concomitant devotion to money is brought out, examined, and shown for what it is: a distraction from the more important aspects of the real world.

Don’t be fooled, this is not outright condemnation of the corporate world; after all, it’s a movie made by a large corporation. But it’s a recommendation that the corporate world viewed as war is sheer foolishness. Businesses exist to provide goods & services to customers, not to destroy each other and, in the process, consume the employees right down to their shoes – whether they’re worn out or made of alligator hide.

Add in superb performances, even from the supporting cast, excellent staging, and a strong story which seems like fluff, but isn’t, and it’s not hard to say You Can’t Take It with You is Recommended.

Quinta Jurecic on Lawfare discusses the resemblance between the medieval theory of monarchy, wherein a King has a mortal body but embodies an immortal essence, and similarities to President Trump and its legal ramifications:

In short, the distinction between the “personal” [Twitter] account and the “official” account is far from a dispositive one; the King’s Two Bodies exist layered on top of one another. With that in mind, how are we to identify a tweet from the Office of the President versus a tweet from Donald Trump in his personal capacity—if there is even a difference at all?

Amusing as this question may be, it actually does matter, across a number of different axes. I’m not talking here merely about maintaining the cognitive distinction between the statements of a person and the statement of the institutional presidency. But there are important legal implications too.

Consider the problem first in terms of its litigation implications. Delineating the scope of presidential immunity from civil suit in Fitzgerald, the Supreme Court ruled that the President enjoys absolute immunity when acting “within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.” Writing sixteen years later in Jones, the Court further held that Fitzgerald’s “reasoning provides no support for an immunity for unofficial conduct,” denying that “the President … has an immunity that extends beyond the scope of any action taken in an official capacity.”

Jones never considered what “unofficial conduct” undertaken by the President in office might look like, because it focused on conduct that took place before President Clinton assumed the presidency. But the Court’s arguments regarding the divisions between official and unofficial conduct in these two cases can arguably apply to behavior carried out within a president’s time in office as well. I feel confident the Trump administration will produce litigation fleshing out the boundaries of non-immune presidential conduct in office.

So the questions are whether anything said on any Trump Twitter account is immune to litigation – or if none of them are. It isn’t like being impolitic near a hot microphone, since tweeting by accident seems highly unlikely; it’s a deliberate act. So when is the President immune, and when isn’t he?

The Hill seems to indicate that Trump will be part of the Ossoff / Handel race in Georgia:

President Trump made a Thursday [April 20] fundraising pitch for Georgia GOP House candidate Karen Handel, as both parties pull out all the stops for a much-watched June runoff.

If this continues, Handel’s fate may be tied to Trump’s actions to a greater than normal extent – and, as noted earlier, this may be a negative for Handel as Trump did not do well in Georgia District 6. It also doesn’t hurt to review Trump’s messaging on the first campaign:

Trump got involved in the race days ahead of the primary, recording robocalls urging voters to rebuke Ossoff at the ballot box and tweeting that the Georgia Democrat is a “super liberal.”

“Now that we have a Republican nominee, Democrats will stop at nothing to tear down Karen Handel in Georgia,” Trump wrote in a fundraising email to supporters. “We must unite and fight back, Fellow Conservative.”

“Please, make an emergency contribution RIGHT NOW to support Karen Handel in the Georgia special election.”

Following Tuesday’s results, Trump tweeted that it was a “big” win for Republicans and took partial credit for the outcome. He also called Handel by phone to congratulate her on making the runoff.

“Despite major outside money, FAKE media support and eleven Republican candidate, BIG ‘R’ win with runoff in Georgia,” Trump tweeted late Tuesday. “Glad to be of help!”

But Ossoff did better than expected, won the “jungle primary,” regardless of Trump’s blathering, and nearly ended the election early. This will be interesting to watch.

Graving dock:

an excavated shore dry dock for the repair and maintenance of ships. [Dictionary.com]

Observed on an informative plaque aboard the USS Constellation.

I’ve run into a bit of a conundrum today, as I struggle to catch up on my reading that piled up while we were away on a vacation. First, Andrew Sullivan posted a continuation of the controversy swirling about some college campuses these days. Here’s a bit of it:

Check out this recent staff editorial at the Wellesley News. It draws an explicit distinction between “free speech” and what it calls “hate speech.” The former is fine, the latter impermissible. How does the editorial define “hate speech”? “Racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia or any other type of discriminatory speech.” Oppose affirmative action? Free speech denied. Challenge the subjugation of women in Islam? Ditto. Support a traditionalist view of marriage? Silence the bigot! Wellesley’s student journalists argue, moreover, that they are not being intolerant. They insist they are in fact in favor of free speech and quite forgiving of contrary views. Behold the compassion: “Mistakes will happen and controversial statements will be said … It is vital that we encourage people to correct and learn from their mistakes rather than berate them for a lack of education they could not control.” But there are, of course, limits. If you persist in your error, and are not successfully re-educated, “then hostility may be warranted.” That includes anyone who supports “racist politicians or pay[s] for speakers that prop up speech that will lead to the harm of others.” The latter category is so vast and vague it would essentially ban the speech of anyone who supported the campaign of our current president, i.e., 46 percent of the country.

The students’ polemic is a fine example of shallow analysis, hardly shielding the power-hungry grasping motivating it; perhaps I’ll take it apart in more detail at a later date. But then I received a petition from change.org:

In its public statement of core purpose, The New York Times commits itself to telling “the complete, unvarnished truth as best we can learn it.” Now, scientists and concerned citizens across the country urge The New York Times to uphold its commitment to the truth and rescind its job offer to the climate denier Bret Stephens.

Science says that climate change is happening, human activity is causing it, and its adverse impacts will only increase unless we act to curb the emissions of fossil fuels. Over 97% of peer-reviewed climate-science studies have reaffirmed this truth. Climate change threatens our agricultural system, our water supply, our coastal cities, our public health, and our national security. It threatens the lives of the current generation of young children. The New York Times itself has acknowledged that climate change is “the most important story in the world.”

Yet Bret Stephens writes about climate change with utter contempt, calling climate science a “religion without God […] presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge.” He slanders the integrity of climate scientists, claiming that they practice the “hyping of flimsy studies—melting Himalayan glaciers; vanishing polar ice—to press the political point.” And he falsifies the significance of scientific data to claim that the climate crisis is merely “hysteria generated by an imperceptible temperature rise of 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.” As the NASA Earth Observatory explains: “A one-degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all the oceans, atmosphere, and land by that much. In the past, a one- to two-degree drop was all it took to plunge the Earth into the Little Ice Age. A five-degree drop was enough to bury a large part of North America under a towering mass of ice 20,000 years ago.” Whether or not insults and slander have a place on the Opinion Page of The New York Times, surely his falsification of scientific facts puts Mr. Stephens in direct conflict with the Times’ public commitment to uphold the truth.

And something about the two pieces – not so much Andrew himself, but the anonymous student quoted – and the petition struck me as related. I believe it’s the determination of each writer (singular or plural) to deny someone else a voice, and that the group they implicitly represent has a singular and  unique claim on the truth. Neither is a pleasant truth to embody, as, taken together, they antagonize those who are not part of the group. In this respect, the Wellesley group is in more desperate straits as their claim is patronizing, arbitrary, and not consistent with serious, scholarly investigation. It stinks of “wisdom” handed down from on high, criticism not to be met with reason, but with the sword.

And that never ends well.

The petition makes me uncomfortable more because it wishes to shut down the voice of a critic before he ever gets started. While this does not meet the definition of censorship, since government is not involved, it is unfair to a fellow citizen.

It is my consistent belief that every citizen should have the opportunity to make a fool of himself in public. If Mr. Stephens wishes to do so in The New York Times, then, at the discretion of the Editor, he should be permitted to do so – and he should be held to the standards of The New York Times as stated:

… “the complete, unvarnished truth as best we can learn it.”

If, as the petitioner writes, Mr. Stephens misrepresents the facts, then I would hope the editorial staff would inform him of his errors, and if he persists, can his ass.

And then maybe tatoo “LIAR!” on his forehead.

But to shut him down before he can go there? This smacks of personal vendetta. This smacks of antagonism. And that will not facilitate whatever collective actions we may need to undertake in the future for our very survival.

As much as I’m sympathetic to the climate scientists and their concerns, this was not a petition I could sign.

Spat:

The life cycle of the oyster begins with a free-swimming larval stage that eventually attaches to a hard substrate forming an oyster spat. The spat commences a growth period that is classified into sub-adult and adult phases. [NOAA]

Noted on an informational sign at a rest stop between Baltimore and Charlottesville.

Michael Le Page in NewScientist (8 April 2017) suggests that if the United States will not lead on climate change, it could be dragged:

The nightmare scenario that Trump’s inauguration posed for the nearly 200 countries signed up to the Paris climate agreement has now become reality. The world’s second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases has given up on even trying to meet its target under the agreement.

Now what matters is how the world responds. If other countries stand by and let the US brazenly flout its commitments, the entire agreement could slowly unravel as its credibility evaporates. But what can the other nations do when the agreement includes no enforcement measures?

There is an alternative approach, and many think it could lead to faster emissions cuts. It is introducing a global price on carbon, and slapping carbon tariffs on goods from any country that refuses to join in.

Such a global carbon price has historically been dismissed as politically infeasible. But that was before Trump’s flagrant climate rollback. Suddenly, an intriguing possibility has arisen: could the outrageous behaviour of the US unite nations to take action on climate that will be effective?

It is the role of governments to look to the general welfare of their citizens – and that must include pressuring countries run by recalcitrants to live up to their duties, when their failure to do so will negatively impact your own citizens. One of the problems of having a democracy in which virtually anyone can be elected to high office is that we end up with leaders whose entire conception of the role of government is not congruent with a model which will lead to efficiency – i.e., long term survival. Trump’s emphasis on regulation reduction, the destruction of the EPA, even the reduction in specific coal regulations, as well as many other  activities are memorable for how they will increase corporate profits – not for how they will affect the public welfare.

Of course, the United States has long been known as the home of free enterprise as well as government role ignorance. President Coolidge is famously known for the misquote (which speaks more for the misquoters than for President Coolidge),

“The business of America is business” or “The business of the American people is business.”

The accurate quote is “the chief business of the American people is business.” Comparing the two clarifies that the accurate quote refers to the citizenry; the first is easily interpreted to refer to America in all the roles. I have not investigated whether this is a deliberate misquote, or merely a sloppy editor thinking to compress a sentence; but it does its part in discrediting the important regulatory role government has in society.

I also found this remark interesting from Le Page’s article:

For many economists, the risk of trade wars is the strongest argument against carbon tariffs. However, world leaders will need to weigh this risk against the immense and growing costs of climate change. There is an opportunity here for countries that are serious about tackling climate change to bypass the ineffectual Paris agreement and club together to impose a global carbon price.

Here again, Trump might make the decision easier. He has been threatening to slap big tariffs on goods from China to boost US industries, an action that could spark a trade war. If it happens, imposing carbon tariffs on US goods would be one of the ways China and others could respond while maintaining the moral high ground. We live in interesting times.

And would Trump survive a trade war? Is he a good enough politician to turn that to his advantage? Or would the resultant hit on the economy finally result in his being boosted out of office?

As asteroid recently went zipping by us and NASA/JPL captured some radar images of it. Gotta love this sequence:

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR

Radar images of asteroid 2014 JO25 were obtained in the early morning hours on Tuesday[April 18th, 2017], with NASA’s 70-meter (230-foot) antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. The images reveal a peanut-shaped asteroid that rotates about once every five hours. The images have resolutions as fine as 25 feet (7.5 meters) per pixel.

Asteroid 2014 JO25 was discovered in May 2014 by astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona — a project of NASA’s Near-Earth Objects Observations Program in collaboration with the University of Arizona. The asteroid will fly safely past Earth on Wednesday at a distance of about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers), or about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon. The encounter is the closest the object will have come to Earth in 400 years and will be its closest approach for at least the next 500 years.

“The asteroid has a contact binary structure – two lobes connected by a neck-like region,” said Shantanu Naidu, a scientist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who led the Goldstone observations. “The images show flat facets, concavities and angular topography.”

The largest of the asteroid’s two lobes is estimated to be 2,000 feet (620 meters) across.

Can’t help but wonder about the material connecting the two lobs – solid? Doesn’t really seem like enough gravity would be present to hold it together if it wasn’t solid, but then there must be a reason for it to separate as well, and as close as the two lobes are, that doesn’t seem likely either.